Joe's Wet Dream, A 550 Gallon Work In Progress

[Jobiwan]

I set up a vinyl pool today to cure the 400 to 500 pounds of live rock I'm going to start with, it holds between 400 and 550 gallons depending on how full I fill it, I'll line it with one of those blue reinforced plastic tarps in the hopes it will prevent the pool from getting a hole punched in it. I wonder what the chances are of me not putting 500 gallons of salt water on our lawn, at least that will cut down on the mowing...

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

I was in Whidbey yesterday to pick up a custom built stand for my mixing drums. What part of the island are you on? My in-laws have live on the north part of the island for over 20 years.

BTW, the tank is full of water. I played with the water levels tonight and think I got it dialed in. I will see what it looks like tomorrow morning if it we are stable, then I will add salt tomorrow after work and dial it again.

I hope by the weekend I should be able to add sand and LR.

 

[Jobiwan]

LED's etc

Hey Kirk, I live on the South end just outside of Langley, If you ever get down this way give me a shout. Your folks are up around Oak Harbor I imagine, nice area, I get up there every week or two. I'd like to get over and see your tank when it is up and running if I could impose, I know it will be a beauty. I just picked up some moonlights for my system, I don't know if you are gonna use them, I'm using the Current USA lunar links, I'm alternating blue and white modules, they are my choice because you can link up to 6 2-LED modules on one power source, I didn't want to deal with a huge number of transformers, most off the shelf units are set up with one transformer per LED. gets kinda rediculous with a lot of units, they are very economical also, I'm getting two power sources and 10 LED modules for under 100 bucks, I'll have them running just for late night viewing for around four hours after the main lights go out, then give the tank 8 houts with no light, Anthony Calfo thinks corals do best with some total darkness rather than continuous "moonlighting" every night... Jason's gonna weld me up a stand for my mixing tank, I'm having a little trouble getting the online knuckleheads to complete my order for a 105 gallon vertical poly tank, I need the 24" x 65" dimension, anyone know where I could get something like that locally? I've got a couple of the bigass olive barrels, I need the small footprint...

 

[NC2WA]

Joe,

You have an open invitation to visit my tank anytime..Just let me know when you are in the area and will we make it work.

I plan to get some T5 Tek Sunlight Supply Retro kit this weekend.
My water level has been stable for one day; I am going to add salt tonight and adjust the water level again, then will add the live rock before Eric comes next week to complete the rest of the install.

 

[Jobiwan]

Sounds good Kirk, I'll be out of commission for a week or so, going in for a stomache bypass next week, hope we can get together after that some time.

I thought over T5 vs VHO, a little more availabilty of 5 footers in the VHO's at this time, so I went the VHO route, nice thing about the Icecaps is I think I could change over to T5's down the road fairly easily if there is any advantage, probably just a matter of different endcaps, I gotta admit all the overdriving info and such on T5's had my head spinning...

 

[NC2WA]

by stomache bypass do you mean gastric surgery? hope everything goes well.

I have the eye screws screwed into the ceiling..will be measuring the cable and doing cuts tomorrow..need to see if I can borrow a wire cutter from someone..once the lighting rack is hung, i plan on dumping almost 2 buckets of IO Salt into the tank.

 

[Jobiwan]

Yeah, it's that turn your stomach into a 1 ounce pouch deal, beats the hell out of diet and exercise you know, I'm sure it will be fine, I've got a doctor with a lot of practice.

I talked with Jason about changing the setup for my hood, instead of running cables and pulleys all the way up to the cathedral ceiling he's gonna build me some sort of attachment to the stand that will extend over the tank , we'll then run the winch through that extended arm, it's somewhat vaguely similar to the setup on reef centrals tank of the month featured now....

 

[NC2WA]

Is any of this going to be outside? or is it all inside?

I finally got my lighting rack installed and added 210 gallons of IO Salt to the tank. Will give one day to mix and then check salinity. LR will be added next, then sand.

 

[Jobiwan]

Not sure I understand the question, I think the answer is inside. I'm gonna try to place my live rock before I fill the tank, I've got almost 250 gallons in vat storage available, and the sump can hold almost 250 filled to the brim, I'll need to crawl inside the tank (and by "I" I mean my 125 pound wife) to get all the rock placed, so we'll go that route...

 

[NC2WA]

I mean is the tank, stand, canopy, pumps, going to be inside or will you have some of this equipment outside (ie, a garage, etc.).

The Iwaki 70 RLT are a good pump but a little loud for me. Thankfully, all of my setup is in the garage, otherwise, a different (ie, quieter) pump choice would have needed to be chosen.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

going in for a stomache bypass next week

Only soup for you!!

(Best of luck with all!)

 

[Jobiwan]

LOL thanks fishy...

all pumps will be remoted to the basement/crawlspace below, the chiller will go there also when I get it. Jason is obsessive about making his systems totally silent, that will be way cool. The salt mixing vat with it's Iwaki 100, RO unit, and the 20lb CO2 tank for the reactor will all be remoted to the garage, should be a very clean installation...

 

[NC2WA]

Believe me, it is a silent, but it took alot of tweaking of values to get it there.

 

[Jobiwan]

Construction to begin at last!

All of our ducks are finally in a row, Jason's garage is overflowing with the bounties of the brown Santa (no, I'm not being politically incorrect, I'm referring to UPS...) Due to the scale of this project all raw materials and equipment had to be in place before starting it, the first phase will be welding the stand framework, that will take place later this week, then the tank will be constructed on the stand. The only major issue remaining is aluminum vs. stainless steel for the stand/hood skin, Jason and I will meet with a fabricator in Tacoma who specializes in high end custom SS kitchens in the next week or two and we will decide at that point which way to go. I have had the floor under the tank reinforced this week with a 6" x 6" beam, and three 6" x 6" posts, hi\pefully these are herky enought to handle the weight of two medium sized automobiles, I also built a 3/4" plywood shelf for the pumps/chiller, the last photos are of the 105 gal mixing tank which was just delivered, looking forward to an automated H2O changing setup, that should keep those 4 week changes from creeping up to 6 weeks...

 

[bc_slc]

how did the surgery go?

 

[Jobiwan]

It went great, thanks for asking, I'm trying to get used to the idea that my buffet busting days are over. I'm already down from a morbidly obese 294 pounds to a svelte 278.

 

[dragoneggs]

Hey you are on your way! BTW... you are going to love Jason's tank!

 

[NC2WA]

looking good..

most of my tank had to be pre-ordered as well, and the waiting was tough. Take a look at my recent pics of my tank. it shows the mixing vats and the WC change system and autotop off (for evaporation in the sum) Eric installed. I cant wait to use it.

 

[Jobiwan]

Construction Begins!!!

After 6 months of planning and preparation everything is now coming together. I will post pics of the construction phase over the next couple of weeks. The stand pictured in this posting is made of 2" square steel tubing, it is 1/4" thick, (or maybe it is 3/8", I forget, all I know is it is strong enough to hold several times the weight of my system). It will be coated with Line-X, the material used to coat pickup beds, this will make it impervious to salt corrosion.

 

[NC2WA]

YEAH !!

Your jaw will drop when you see the size of the stand. I had no idea my stand would be that big when it was delivered.

Once your materials arrive, it will be no time before it is built, so do as much prep work on your own as you can. (from reading your thread it sounds like you are doing anyway).

BTW, I have a pair of cinnamon clownfish in the tank..they look great !!